Girls basketball power polls: Plentywood, Alberton-Superior climb

As district tournaments get ready to tip off around Montana, all teams have a clean slate and an equal opportunity to extend their seasons to the divisional and ultimately state tournaments. But girls basketball teams have spent the regular season separating the contenders from the pretenders.

Plentywood has had as good of two-week stretch of any team in the state, notching impressive wins over District 2C rivals Froid-Lake and Savage. The Wildcats earned the league’s No. 1 seed and climbed to third in the MontanaSports.com Class C girls basketball power poll behind only unbeaten teams Box Elder and Belt.

Alberton-Superior, the third and final undefeated team in Class C, makes its debut in the top five this week after putting the finishing touches on its perfect season in northwestern Montana. Savage fell from the unbeaten ranks last week with losses to Froid-Lake and Plentywood.

There were no changes in the Class AA or Class B rankings, as the five teams in each of those polls continued their winning ways. Class A saw some movement, though, as Browning, who was ranked fifth last week, played the Nos. 1- and 2-ranked teams in Havre and Columbia Falls. The Indians lost to the Blue Ponies but upset the Wildkats, so they moved up to No. 4 and Columbia Falls slid to fifth.